Sarya: "My name is Sarya Vael and I'm a researcher."
Kaas: "Researcher, a woman."
Sarya: "Despite the fact that you may think I'm insulting you by lying, I assure you that I'm a researcher, particularly in the field of poisons of all kinds and steam engines."
Kaas: "Do you have a study permit to conduct this type of experimentation?"
Sarya, surprised by this question, couldn't answer.
Kaas: "You don't know what that is, do you?"
Kaas: "This is starting badly, but let's explain how it started."
Sarya: "Despite the fact that you may think I'm insulting you by lying, I assure you that I'm a researcher, particularly in the field of poisons of all kinds and steam engines."
Kaas: "Do you have a study permit to conduct this kind of experiment?"
Sarya, surprised by this question, couldn't answer.
Kaas: "You don't know what that is, do you?"
Even though he didn't want to waste time and listen to her story, he still had to explain to her, against her will, how the studies work for him. He explained that in this country, a study permit is issued by the royal palace through an organization called "Intellectuals of Truth" that allows any scientist to conduct research on any subject, whether it's biology, chemistry, astronomy, whether it's for the manipulation of chimera or mutant monsters, animal or plant species, or even potentially dangerous substances.
Kaas: "As for us, the "intellectuals of truth," we found several chemical tools, books, and beakers in your room."
Kaas explained to him, without wasting any time, that he is one of the investigators and alchemists of this organization and that it is thanks to his permits, which pass through his organization, that they can be informed if people attempt to conduct dangerous experiments and that they can be arrested in order to better investigate them and decide their fate, like that of Sarya, whose fate has not yet been decided, but who strongly blames herself for the death penalty.
Kaas: "I must therefore conclude that you attempted to conduct research with chemicals illegally."
Sarya: "I admit it."
Kaas: "This is starting badly, but let's explain how it all started."
Kaas took a leather notebook out of his pocket to take notes.
Even though it didn't please her, she had to answer.
Sarya: "It all started when I was fourteen."
Flashback begins: Seven years earlier.
February 16, 523, after the Red Cataclysm.
In a village located in the north of the kingdom, there was a village near a lake. This village was officially called "The Eighth Red Village."
In this kingdom, instead of giving each city and village a name and risking being surprised and sending troops in the wrong direction in the event of an enemy attack, the royal family and aristocrats of the kingdom decided to name the urban areas with a number for each city or village. Each direction relative to the kingdom's capital could be located quickly, and each direction represented a color: "red for North, blue for East, yellow for South, and green for West."
To summarize, this village is the eighth furthest from the capital, passing through the north. Even though this is the official name of the village, it doesn't stop the locals from giving it a name and christening it "pepper," because the village's founder several centuries ago was a farmer who cultivated pepper, which became the village's specialty.
And in this village, as in the others, the roads are covered with mosaic tiles, and the houses are made of brick and have roofs equipped with a steam boiler to heat the water, which then circulated throughout the house.
They could also produce hot water for the bathrooms and kitchen. But in this village where adults worked and children played, there was a house at the far end, not in ruins, but which still seemed poorly maintained on the outside. The walls were sturdy, being made of brick, but tall grass grew around them, and some of the roof tiles had fallen off, leaving the villagers to see a hole in the roof, where the kitchen was supposed to be. They easily figured this out since all the houses were built with the same plan.
Opposite the kitchen was a room housing a child who had just woken up. This child was Sarya Vael when she was 14.
Sarya (14 years old): "Hello to myself."
The fact that she said hello to herself is due to her status as an orphan; she doesn't know the identity of her parents.
I don't even know where she was born, and when she asked the villagers, they all told her that when she was a baby, she was placed in the middle of the night with two long black metal needles in the center of the village. Her crying woke the neighbors, who out of kindness accepted this child into their community and taught her to be independent as early as possible. The neighbors told her it was for her own good, but she quickly understood it was to avoid disturbing them.
Despite her age, she is still smaller than average due to her diet, which isn't enough to allow her to develop properly, but is enough to give her the energy to get through the day. She was 1 meter and 45 centimeters tall, with light green eyes and black hair falling to her lower back because she never bothered to cut it. She has a fair complexion and two moles over her right eye.
Her morning began as usual. She cracked three eggs into a pan over a wood fire for breakfast. While waiting for the eggs to cook, she put on her work clothes—not brown overalls like the village masons, but a set of black leather pants and a black leather top. She had bought them to go pick medicinal herbs, poisonous herbs, and mushrooms in the forest not far from the village, to sell to the village herbarium, which often gave her a discount. After eating, she put on her satchel, similar to a bag, but she didn't wear shoes. Instead, she used two long strips of thick fabric that she wrapped around her legs, and she left her house.
In front of her door was a dead bird, probably from the cat she shared her food with a few weeks ago.
Sarya: "He really needs to stop that one."
To her right, she receives mud thrown at her face.
???: "TOUCH."
???: "IDIOT, IT'S HER OUTFIT THAT SHOULD BE HIGHLIGHTED."
???: "Are you stupid? They wear black clothes. How do you expect us to notice a mud stain against such a dark background?"
Sarya immediately turned her head to see, and they were the village children who, over time, had developed the bad habit of harassing her because she's a girl and lives alone in a dirty house.
Sarya: "Didn't you have anything better to do than bother me?"
Child 1: "Stop complaining, little witch."
Child 2: "My father told me that strange women are witches."
Sarya: "I'm not a witch."
Child 1: "Then prove it."
Sarya remained silent at this order, which was pronounced with the intention of harming others, because Sarya had no way of proving she wasn't a witch, but that also meant there was no proof that she was one.
The children ran in the opposite direction, hurling one last insult.
CHILD #2: "THOSE POINTS UNDER YOUR EYE MUST HAVE APPEARED WHEN YOU KILLED YOUR RELATIVE."
This sentence was a shock to her, as she was an orphan, but it was also very easy to ignore them the next second because often an insult amounts to saying something false, and Sarya knew that.
SARYA: "Okay, let's not focus on these two idiots."
She left, picking up the bird's body left by the cat to dispose of in the tall grass that grew around the house. Rubbing the top of her leather shirt against her cheek to remove the mud, she collected all sorts of medicinal and poisonous herbs. Putting them in two different pockets of her satchel, it was easy for her to find her way around this forest, which she must have explored a hundred times. Then she returned to the village, passing by the pepper trees, which looked like long bushes stretching upwards, and they were.
Entering the village, she headed straight for Hugo the herb gardener. Upon entering, she found Hugo, the owner of the store, a muscular man in his thirties with curly brown hair and a beard.
Hugo: "Hello Sarya, what do you bring me?" Sarya: "Hello Hugo, today I have medicinal herbs, poisonous plants, and 10 mushrooms."
Hugo: "You didn't eat any this time."
Which made the little girl blush with embarrassment.
Not surprisingly, it's easier to find poisonous herbs than medicinal herbs in a forest, and even though poisonous herbs are dangerous, some plants produce toxins that can protect themselves from bacterial or fungal infections.
Hugo: "So you bring me the same amount as usual, so you'll receive the same amount of money. Put the bag on the table and get me the plants."
Looking down at her, he noticed she wasn't wearing any shoes, and instead there were
Wrap two strips of cloth around your legs.
Hugo: "With all the money you make selling this weed, why don't you buy yourself some shoes instead of these old pieces of cloth?"
Sarya: "Sorry, but I prefer to save money in case of emergency to buy medicine or for my project."
Hugo: "If you're talking about your plan to open a library, we adults have already told you that it's difficult for a woman, and even more so for an orphan, to own a building."
After a sigh at the stubborn girl in front of him, a question quickly came to mind.
Hugo: "But wait a minute, how do you store money at home? Do you have a safe in the vault?"
Sarya: "No, I don't have a safe, I store it in the..."
She stopped immediately, realizing she was going to reveal to Hugo where she was keeping the money she was saving. She knew Hugo wasn't a thief, but she still avoided taking the risk. No one in the village knew Sarya that she was hiding money at home, and if this information spread throughout the village, she knew she risked being robbed, not only by adults who didn't like her because she was a girl, by those who rejected her because she was an orphan, and by children who bullied her. It was money she had worked hard to earn.
Hugo, who understood why she stopped being angry with her for not telling him the truth, was rather pleased that she hadn't revealed the location of her treasure.
Hugo: "That's good, it's better not to reveal the location of this kind of thing. Don't worry, no one else in the village knows."
Sarya shook her head at this question, which visibly relieved Hugo.
Hugo: "Okay, show me these herbs."
After this request, Sarya opened her bag and was about to take out the herbs until a noise interrupted her.
*Tap-tap-tap*.
Footsteps were heard from outside.
Hugo: "SOMEONE HEARD US!" Hugo shouted.
Sarya: "Someone was at the door the whole time. Judging by the noise, it must have been a child."
Hugo: "Sarya, listen to me. I'll give you the money, and you hurry up and go home. It's probably one of the village children who hates you and will try to steal it."
Sarya was surprised that Hugo had come to the same conclusion as her regarding the identity of the person listening to their conversation behind the door, but she didn't have time to think about it; she had to quickly grab the money and leave.
After a minute of calculating the cost of the products,
Hugo: "Here, 3 silver coins and 4 bronze coins, now run."
Sarya hurried out to go back home. The reason she hurried home was not only because it didn't have a lock, so anyone could get in, but also because it was enough to lightly search her house to find money. When she arrived in front of her, she immediately opened the door and headed to her room. Next to her bed, under the rug, was a dirty brown rug that might have been an old curtain or a cape. She removed it, and underneath it was a wooden trapdoor with a hole that wasn't for a lock, but for a finger to slide through to pull it. To her pleasant surprise, all the money that had been hidden was still there.
Sarya: "*Sigh* Thank you."
In this canvas bag, she must have found a good hundred bronze and silver coins. She had accumulated selling herbs to Hugo for almost two years. She put the three silver coins and four bronze coins she had obtained inside. At Hugo's, 100 grams of medicinal herbs were worth three bronze coins, 100 grams of poisonous herbs were worth two bronze coins, and ten mushrooms were worth three bronze coins. Ten bronze coins were worth one silver coin, meaning that in one day's work she had earned the equivalent of 34 bronze coins. She closed the trapdoor and hid it again with the carpet, despite the fact that she hadn't noticed a shadow watching her from the window.
???: "Thank you, Sarya, for showing me your hiding place."
Whispered the shadow.
That night, after eating a loaf of bread stored in a bag at the back of the kitchen, she went outside with an oil lamp to check if the cat had left another bird. There was nothing in front of her door, but just as she was about to close it, a high-pitched noise interrupted her.
*Pschitt*
Sarya: "Where was that noise coming from?"
*Pschitt*
Looking to the side, she noticed it was coming from the tall grass that had grown around the house. Taking a step forward and turning the aim of her lamp to increase the intensity of the flame to see better, she saw a rope at the bottom.
Brown spread on the ground.
Sarya: "Who would have left that here?"
She reached out to pick it up.
*Pschitt*.
Her hand had stopped about thirty centimeters from the rope, which was making a high-pitched noise, but she noticed too late that at the end of the rope were two yellow marbles and a mouth equipped with two needles.
Sarya: "A SNAKE."
It was too late; the rope spread on the ground was a real poisonous animal, more precisely a snake, which jumped at her and bit her arm.
Sarya: "AAAAAHHHHHHHHH."
Events were happening far too quickly for her, whether it was the pain caused by the bite or the venom that was beginning to flow down her arm. She was flailing so much that she fell onto her side, crushing the snake, forcing it to release her and run away. On the ground, she was writhing in pain and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Sarya: "HELP, A SNAKE!!!!!"
Sarya: "HELP, A SNAKE!!!!!"
This caught the attention of the adults.
But that's all, no one ran to help her; the snake ran away, and Sarya's flailing on the ground forced the venom to spread even faster through her body, which was already weak compared to a normal girl her age.
Sarya: "HELP!"
Sarya: "HELP."
But no one came to her, worse still, some made fun of her, and others went home, closing the door to ignore her.
Writhing in pain and struggling to breathe, Sarya lost consciousness afterward.
End of Flashback: Back to the present.
October 17, 530, after the Red Cataclysm.
Back in the distant cave, Sarya, 21, had just finished telling the beginning of her story to Kaas.
The latter, even though he wasn't sure of the veracity of his information, was still surprised by the way the villagers treated a child, even if she wasn't their own. He could have made an effort to stay close to her.
Kaas: "So if I understand correctly, you were an orphan from one of the northern villages who collected herbs to save money to found a library, and one evening you were bitten by a poisonous snake."
Sarya: "Yes, that's right."
Kaas: "May I ask what a snake was doing near you tonight?"
Sarya: "I think the body of the bird I threw into the tall grass attracted it, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Kaas: "I think I know why you survived that night, but I still want to know your point of view for my investigation."
Sarya: "I think it's because of some poisonous herb I've been eating in secret; my body must have developed some kind of resistance."
Kaas: "Well, it's true that the continual consumption of toxins can help strengthen the immune system."
Kaas: "And for the money, how is it that you're broke when you claimed to have over a hundred bronze and silver coins?"
Sarya hesitated to answer but was forced to, lest she be considered a criminal.
Sarya: "It was stolen from me."
Question marks and exclamation marks floated around Kaas's head.
Kaas: "Steal in what way?"
Sarya: "After waking up two days later, I was exhausted and tired because of the slight amount of poison still circulating in my body. I couldn't get up, so I dragged myself on the ground until I got inside my house to eat and drink water. After a few days, to regain my strength, I started picking herbs again. Except that in this case, it was against my will because I was disgusted by the way the adults treated me that day, and when I got home and opened the trapdoor, the bag was gone.
Kaas: "And you think it was someone from the village who stole it, what did you do?"
Sarya: "...….."
Kaas: "Mrs. Vael."
Sarya: "I....I didn't do anything."
Kaas: "You didn't do anything."
Sarya: "The adults and children of the village didn't look kindly on me, so no one would have believed me, and no one would have thought that a child would keep such a large amount of money at home."
Kaas: "And after that, I imagine that out of anger and shame, you left the village."
Sarya nodded slightly at this question, which made Kaas sigh.
Kaas: "No need to tell me everything. I read the report on you, and what follows is indicated in the report."
Sarya: "The report."
Kaas: "Following your escape from the eighth red village, you traveled to the royal capital, thinking you could use your experience gathering herbs, but you were rejected because you are a woman. As a result, you decided to disguise yourself as a boy to enter the great library reserved for the training of nobles to steal about twenty books discussing chemical substances, remedies, and mechanics ".
Sarya: "Yes, I admit it, I'm responsible for that."
Kaas: "Surprisingly, she admits it. I'll see what information I can steal from her."
Kaas: "After that, you entered several laboratories in the royal capital and stole scientific tools funded by the royal palace itself. You sold some of them to use the money to bribe the guards. Finally, over the past three years, you've used medications you yourself made from animal and plant venom on sick patients without being sure they worked or what the side effects were."
Sarya: "I admit it."
Kaas: *Sigh* I've said too much, our conversation is over."
Kaas put his notebook back in his pocket.
Sarya: "And what about the murder story?"
Kaas: "That's not my responsibility. As an investigator and alchemist of the "Intellectuals of Truth," I must prove the veracity of the information you gave me. If I lie, your sentence could be extended."
Sarya couldn't understand all these sentences and the complicated words Kaas was using, but she still understood what might happen to him.
Kaas: "Until the information you didn't provide is verified, it will be the responsibility of the "Purity Hunters" to punish you for your crimes. Even if your goal was to save people, you used the wrong methods."
The woman, still lying and tied to the metal table, was startled by the name of the organization Kaas had mentioned.
*Knock knock knock*
Kaas knocked on the metal door to warn the guards in the hallway that his discussion was over. A few seconds later, a guard wearing a black uniform and a gas mask opened the door for Kaas. Before leaving, he turned to look at Sarya and said one last thing to her.
Kaas: "Don't expect to make it out alive. We will make sure we get rid of you. And if you think you're free, Sarya, know that you are nothing but poison, fleeing in the shadows. We are the cure, and we will inject you with the Truth until your lie collapses."
Sarya was startled when she heard this sentence from the imposing figure who was about to leave.
*BAM*
The sound of the metal door echoed throughout the corridor. Kaas had left, someone determined to make Sarya look like a witch in the eyes of the people. He moved further and further from the room as he crossed the corridor, but he shouted one last sentence loud enough for Sarya to hear.
Kaas: "BRING BACK THE "PURITY HUNTERS."
The "Purity Hunters" are like the "intellectuals of truth," an organization whose goal is to eliminate so-called anomalies such as heresies and forbidden sciences. Everyone in the country knows they can be cruel during torture sessions. They capture criminals, heretics, opponents, and rebels in order to extract information through torture, then release them into the forest with starving dogs on them.
At that moment, everything became clearer in Sarya's mind. The small noises in the drawer to her right were those of small starving animals, and to her left, on the desk, were tools she couldn't make out, but now she understood what they were for.
She understood.
WHICH WAS IN A TORTURE CHAMBER!
CHAPTER 2: THE END